Ambrose Campbell led what have been the first band of British based black musicians. He formed his West African Brothers in London during the Second World War, two decades before the first Notting Hill carnival and more than 40 years before the term "world music" was invented.

Campbell was born in Lagos, Nigeria, in 1919 and given the Yoruba name Oladipupo Adekoya. He died on June 2006.

Alokpon is a traditional music's star. He has been recording thirty albmus since 1969. His rhythm is the Tchinkmoumé from the hills region, in Savalou. You will regognize the Gota drum with its heavy basses.

In a early post I talked about brass instruments. The colonisation brought back military brass bands. After, Benin was for a long time a military regime and Brass bands of were playing everywhere in the country. The cultura freedom gave rise to a genuine Jazz...

Fanfare Adonaï Jazz: "Culture"

Nowadays In every church of the country you can hear brass bands. But during the nineties the freedom of Vodoun religion revealed a deeper Jazz like the one of the international Gangbe Brass Band and their first album: "Gan-gbé".

Gangbé Brass Band: "Segala"

"New Orleans and Lagos both seemed equally closed to Benin when the Gangbe Brass band made its euphoric New York debut at Joe's pub last night. The band has the world in its grap; its music leaps among the many ethnic traditions of its home, Benin, and beyone to Africa and the New World's African diaspora, seguing from traditional voodoo rhythms to jazz without missing asyncopated beat..."

(John Pareles-New York Times sept 2002)

Gangbé Brass Band: "Remember Fela"

Gangbé Brass Band: "Ekui nao"

All the paintings are from Dominique Zinkpé a famous painter from Benin